Can MMORPGs Be Enjoyable If you Only Play For 40 hours of Gameplay?
Moorgard has written a very interesting article about whether MMORPG players have too high of standards for the replayability of MMORPGs. Moorgard states,
Some people who play MMOs seem to think they’re only worth buying if they are equally fun for all players on day one, day two, and day 2,427. And I don’t believe it....
I think it’s okay to play an MMO for a while and move on. It doesn’t mean you were cheated or should feel bitter toward the developer; as long as you genuinely had fun for a while, you made a good investment....
I agree with this to a certain extent, however, I think that the pricing of MMORPGs is in conflict with this opinion. While Moorgard acknowledges that the pricing model might have to change, I think that this needs to be examined more if players are being told to lower their expectations for MMORPGs.
If an MMORPG is going to have the same level of replayability as a single player RPG, what justifies the reoccurring monthly fee? To me the reoccurring monthly fee is to pay for the continued updates to the mmorpg after launch. If I am only going to play an MMORPG for 3 to 6 months, why should I pay any monthly fee. The retail box price should certainly pay for this first 6 months.
Having said this, I would love for other payment models to be developed. I would be willing to pay $50 for an mmorpg if it meant I could play for 3-6 months without these monthly fees. This would allow me to try out more games. The current pricing model doesn't allow me to experience most of the new MMORPGs that come out. It would be great if this changed.
3 Responses to “Can MMORPGs Be Enjoyable If you Only Play For 40 hours of Gameplay?”
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Possible New Payment Options? « MMOre Insight Says:
July 18th, 2007 at 10:27 am[...] July 18, 2007 I’ve been thinking about this for quite awhile after reading a post over at MMO Explorer regarding payment options, which was inspired by Moorguard which was inspired by Adele (we [...]
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Trio Says:
July 20th, 2007 at 1:51 pmI completely dissagree that the retail price of a MMO should include 3-6 months of play. Any consol RPG you buy will give you between 20-80 hours of gameplay. Even if you are a casual player and log just 2 hrs a night 5 days a week, that’s 40hours in your 1st month. With your average consol game, you’ve pretty much finished it by that time and now need to dish out another $40-$50 for a new game. On the other hand, with a MMO, the 1st month is usually free and now you will only have to dish out $15 and you should still have a ton more to explore. If you play more than a casual gamer, even a hard-core gamer, you will burn through those consol games in a few days, but you should definitly be able to play the MMO non-stop and still have more stuff to do by the time you gotta start paying monthly. For the money, a good MMO provides far more value than any consol game could ever hope to do.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
You make a good point here and I think the same thing should apply to game consoles. If your buying a $169 X Box you should get free credits to play online. Or even the X Box 360. I am not sure but I don’t think that my ex was offered any such incentive to hook into the internet right away when he took his system out of the box.